CHAPTER XVII

Parker Steel was compiling his list of visits for the day, when, following the sharp “burr” of the electric bell, came the announcement that Mrs. Murchison, of Lombard Street, waited to see him in the drawing-room. A momentary cloud of annoyance passed over the physician’s sleek and shallow face. Few men care to appear ungenerous in the eyes of a woman, and Parker Steel was not devoid of the passion for indiscriminate popularity. The craving to appear excellent in the eyes of others is a more potent power for the polishing of man’s character than the dogmatics of a state religion, and Mrs. Betty’s husband purred like a cat about the silk skirts of society. Man for man, he could have dealt with Murchison on hard and scientific lines, but with a woman the logic of unsympathetic facts could be consumed by the lava flow of the more passionate privileges of the heart.

He continued scribbling at his desk, mentally considering the attitude he should assume, and hesitating between an air of infinite regret and a calm assumption of stoical responsibility. The door opened on him as he still studied his part. Mrs. Betty stood on the threshold, eyes a-glitter, an eager frown on her pale face.

She closed the door and approached her husband, leaning the palms of her hands on the edge of the table.

“Well, Parker, are you prepared with sal-volatile and a dozen handkerchiefs?”

Steel looked uneasy, a betrayal of weakness that his wife’s sharp eyes did not disregard.

“I suppose I must see the woman,” and he fastened the elastic band about his visiting-book with an irritable snap.

“See her? By all means, unless you are afraid of needing a tear bottle.”

“Perhaps you would prefer to interview—”

A flash of malicious amusement beaconed out from his wife’s eyes.

“No, no, sir, you must assume the responsibility. I shall enjoy myself by listening to your diplomatic irrelevances.”

Parker Steel pushed back his chair.

“Betty, you are a woman, what do you advise?”

“Advise!” and she laughed with delicious satisfaction. “Am I to advise infallible man?”

“Well, you know the tricks of the sex.”

“Do I, indeed! Firstly, then, my dear Parker, beware of tears.”

The physician gave an impatient twist to his mustache.

“Kate Murchison is not that sort of creature,” he retorted.

“No, perhaps not. But you may find her dangerous if she makes use of her emotions.”

“Hang it, Betty, I hate scenes!”

“Scenes are easily avoided.”

“How?”

“By a process of refrigeration. Be as ice. Do not give the lady an opportunity to melt. Compel her to restrain herself for the sake of her self-respect.”

Steel smiled ironically at his wife’s earnestness.

“An antagonistic attitude—”

“Exactly. Polite north-windedness. Be an iceberg of professional propriety. Kate Murchison has pride; she will not catch you by the knees. Heavens, Parker”—and she brimmed with mischief—“I should like to see you trying to disentangle your legs from some hysterical lady’s embraces!”

Her husband glanced at himself in the glass, and adjusted his tie as a protest against his wife’s raillery.

“The sooner the interview is ended—the better,” he remarked.

“Wait, let me see you attempt the necessary stony stare!”

And she glided up and kissed him, much to the spruce physician’s sincere surprise.

Catherine had been moving restlessly to and fro in the drawing-room, glancing at the photographs and pictures, and listening to the murmur of voices that reached her from Parker Steel’s consulting-room. The air of the house seemed oppressive to her, and there was even an unwelcome strangeness about the furniture, as though the inanimate things could conspire against her and repel her sympathies. The environment was the environment of an unfamiliar spirit. The personality of the possessor impresses itself upon the home, and to Catherine there seemed superciliousness and a sense of antagonism in every corner. Her woman’s pride put on the armor of a warlike tenderness. She thought of her children, and was caught thinking of them by Parker Steel.

“Good-morning, Mrs. Murchison.”

“Good-morning.”

“Won’t you sit down?”

There was a questioning pause. Catherine remained standing, her eyes studying the man’s smooth, clever, but soulless face.

“I have come, Dr. Steel, half as a friend—”

The physician’s smile completed the inimical portion of the sentence.

“I cannot but regret,” and he rested his white and manicured hands on the back of a Chippendale chair, “that you have thought fit to interview me, Mrs. Murchison, on such a matter.”

Catherine watched his face as he spoke.

“Of course you realize—”

“The nature of the case? I realize it, Mrs. Murchison, too gravely to admit this meeting to be a pleasure.”

His chilly suavity reacted on Catherine as Betty Steel had promised. Individual antipathy comes quickly to the surface. Any display of feeling before Parker Steel would have been like throwing a burning torch down into the snow.

“I presume you realize the nature of the responsibility you are assuming?”

Her tone had nothing of pacification or appeal. The curve of her neck became the more haughty as she realized the purpose of the man to whom she spoke.

“It is my responsibility, Mrs. Murchison,” and he bent his slim and black-sheathed figure slightly over the rail of the chair, “that makes this interview the more painful to me.”

“You have accused my husband of gross incompetence and carelessness.”

“I have stated facts.”

“Dr. Murchison’s surgical experience is not that of a mere theorist. It has an established reputation. You understand me?”

Parker Steel understood her perfectly, his nostrils lifting at the rebuff.

“My duty, Mrs. Murchison, is towards my own conscience.”

“I do not deny your sense of duty.”

“And the facts of the case—”

“Say—rather—your interpretation of those facts.”

“Madam!”

“For in the interpretation lies the meaning of your action. I can only warn you, for your own sake, to be careful.”

Parker Steel’s mask of unsympathetic suavity lost its unflurried coldness for the moment.

“My dear Mrs. Murchison, I have my day’s work before me, and I am a busy man. It is my misfortune to have earned your resentment by the discovery of a blunder. Please consider the question to be beyond our individual interests.”

“Then I am to understand—?”

“That I have already adopted the only course that seemed honest to me. I have declined to give a death certificate and I have communicated with the coroner.”

Catherine took the blow without flinching, though a deep resentment stirred in her as she remembered how her husband had bulwarked Parker Steel.

“Then I think there is nothing more to be said between us.”

The physician made a step towards the door.

“Accept my regrets”—the vanity of the man, the desire to stand well in the eyes of a handsome woman, was not wholly to be suppressed.

“I accept no regrets, Dr. Steel—”

“Indeed.”

“For no regrets are given. My eyes are open to the truth.”

Steel turned the handle of the door.

“A sense of duty makes us enemies, Mrs. Murchison.”

“Perhaps, sir, your very lively sense of duty may lead you some day into a lane that has no turning.”

Whether by chance, or by premeditated malice, Mrs. Betty crossed the hall as Catherine left the drawing-room. She halted, smiled, and extended a languid hand. Her eyes recalled to Catherine the eyes of the previous night.

“Ah, good-morning, Kate.”

There was not a quiver of emotion on Catherine Murchison’s face. She looked at Mrs. Betty as she would have looked at some pert shop-girl who assured her that some warranted material had been ruined by chemicals in the wash. Parker Steel’s wife was deprived of any suggestion of a triumph.

“I hope you are not tired after Mr. Cranston’s enthusiasm.”

“Intelligent partners never tire me. May I echo the inquiry?”

Her feline spite marred the perfection of Mrs. Betty’s patronizing pity.

“Many thanks. You will excuse me, since I am a woman with responsibilities. You have no children to act as mother to, Betty.”

The barren woman’s lips tightened. The words, with all their innocent irony, went home.

“Oh, I detest children. All the philosophers will tell you that they are a doubtful blessing.”

“A matter of temperament, perhaps.”

“Some of us resemble rabbits, I suppose.”

Their mutual courtesy had reached the limit of extreme tension. Parker Steel, who had been watching the lightning flashes, the play between positive clouds and negative earth, opened the door to let the imminent storm disperse.

Catherine passed out with a slight bending of the head.

“How beautiful these July days are!” she remarked.

“Superb,” and Steel took leave of her with a cynical smile.